Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 09:29:40 -0700 (MST)
From: Martha Gimenez <gimenez-AT-csf.Colorado.EDU>
Subject: Re: BHA: replying to Howie & Cultural Studies & DPF


Well, I will take the plunge and leave my lurker corner.  As a way of
introducing myself, I will just say I teach sociology at the University of
Colorado at Boulder and you can find out more about my work and interests
looking at my home page:  http://csf.colorado.edu/martha

In 1996 I taught a theory seminar in which I used Archer's book.  Students
hated it, for they were social constructionists to the core and fans of
Giddens' structuration theory which, in the end, privileges agency over
structure.  Since then, I look at that book once in a while for i find it
useful to clarify my thinking. I confess I have not yet read DPF with the
thoroughness it deserves because of lack of time, but follow the
discussion in so far as it makes some sense to me and intend to do some
serious reading at the end of the year after dealing with pressing
deadlines.

On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Howard Engleskirchen,WSU/FAC wrote:

snip

> In the post copied in full below, Mervyn raised the following point: 
> 
> > What Archer has persuaded him [RB] of is the enormous 
> importance of past as
> > distinct from present agency in social causation, which he has 
> taken on board in 'the negative generalization of the TMSA'. It is 
> > structural reproduction/change which occurs in the present; the 
> > causal properties of structures are entirely the result of past 
> activity, much of it long
> > past, and their effects precede their reproduction/change. 
> 
> I asked if this didn't go too far in that  it argues that the causal 
> properties of social structures are entirely the result of past activity. 
> I'm eager to hear what others think of this.  Are the causal 
> properties of structures due entirely to past activity?

If I remember correctly (I lent Archer's book to a colleague), Archer
differentiates between structures whose causal powers are independent of
the actions of persons in the present, and structures that require that
action to activate those powers.  For example, the fertility patterns of
earlier generations create a population structure (e.g., the depression
baby bust, the post-war baby boom) which has causal powers whether or not
actors know about it and its potential effects on their lives as the size
of those cohorts affect marriage, employment, promotions, construction,
etc.  Or the distribution of wealth - the structure of wealth ownership
ensures that independently of the extent to which individuals in the
present strive to attain wealthand economic self-determination, the vast
majority are born and will die propertyless regardless of the levels of
income and occupational status they might attain.

Other structures, e.g., gender inequality, racial inequality, themselves
the product of the agency of the "long dead" are, within limits, dependent
on the actions of persons in the present and one could hypothesize that as
people's consciousness and awareness of the negative effects of these
structures increases, the behavior of those whose consciousness and
political will have changed will be aimed to transforming/elaborating
those structures while the actions of others will reproduce them and
maintain them, in an on going process of change that might result in the
overthrown of those structures in the future.

Is this a distinction Archer made or is it my reading of her views?


> 
> I can't see how this could be so.  
> 
> The causal action of persons in the present is an act of agency, 
> but it never stands alone.  It is never a solitary act, isolated, 
> without context.  As RB says, we are always in a stream of action. 
> 
> The narrative, so to speak, of that stream of action resonates 
> against both the past and the future.  The act of causal agency that 
> occurs now completes a social structure begun in the past.  How 
> can we say that the causal properties of social structures are 
> entirely from the past if that structure is completed only now in the 
> present?  

Given that we are all born in a set of pre-existing structures, we always
make history (orengage inacts of causal agency) under circumstances
inherited from the past and not of our choosing (paraphrasing you know who
:), even in our most self-conscious or "agentic" (I hate that word :)
moments we are operating within constraints we did not create.  But what
does it mean "to complete"  a structure?  I understand how our present
actions may transform or maintain the pre-existing structures - in a way
our actions, regardless of our illusions about agency, might be best
understood as the channels through which the structure's causal powers
operate until contradictions among structures generate for us
qualitatively different experiences and forms of consciousness which, in
turn, allow us to focus on transforming,rather than maintaining those
structures. 

> 
> An act now is like a tone of music resonating against sounds heard 
> a measure or two before.  In either case the structure created is 
> created now.  Its causal properties are due to what has occurred in 
> the past, but not that only.  If the event now, in the present, does 
> not occur, the past is causally impotent.  In other words the causal 
> efficacy of any social structure is coauthored by both past and 
> present events.  The present is causally efficacious not only in the 
> way nature is transformed now, but also in the way an anticipation 
> of social practice from the past is brought to life.  The structure is 
> made causally efficacious in the present.  

I don'tquite understand this point, that the structure created is created
now.  If we think of the causal effects of a population structure, what
individuals do today is in large measure an effect of the constraints that
population structure imposes on the opportunity structures of individuals
and other structures and institutions.  We don't create the population
structure - that is the result of the agency of past generations - we
react to it.  On the other hand, if we think of the family structure, we
are in a different terrain and we could all identify instances of family
change as well as preservation and we could also identify structural
changes that create the conditions of possibility for qualitative changes
in family structure produced by the conjunction of agency and
non-agentic,structural effects or unintended consequences of social
changes.

Well, I see I am tying myself into a knot and I better stop here.

best,

Martha

**********************************************
*	Martha E. Gimenez                    *
*	Department of Sociology              *
*	University of Colorado at Boulder    *
*	http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/     *
**********************************************





 
> > Otherwise said, the causal efficacy of social relations always 
> depends on the efficient causality of the present act.  But the 
> present act is always an expression of the of structures of the past 
> which have created structures of expectation.
> 
> I'd be interested to hear what others think of this.  The question  
> seems essential to an understanding of "positioned practices," the 
> TMSA and the ongoing reproduction of social relations.
> 
> Howard
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Date sent:      	Sat, 20 Feb 1999 21:24:23 +0000
> To:             	bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> >From:           	Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
> Subject:        	Re: BHA: replying to Howie & Cultural Studies & DPF
> Send reply to:  	bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> 
> > Hi Howie, all
> > 
> > 1. I agree that Archer's work has its problems, in particular I'm not
> > sure how social contradictions and material culture or the material
> > infrastructure can figure in an Archerian analysis. However, while she
> > is not a professed dialectician, if one defines dialectical thinking
> > with Bhaskar as the art of thinking the coincidence of distinctions and
> > connections, then I think her work on agency and structure (the latter
> > including the Cultural System as a system of logical relations between
> > propositions) may properly be thought of as dialectical. Of course, this
> > is a limited sense of dialectic - I don't think she's committed to a
> > notion of dialectic as objective process involving real dialectical
> > contradictions etc - 'a concrete level of dialectical processes', in
> > your words (but I'm not familiar enough with her work to say that with
> > any great confidence).
> > 
> > 2. Duality of structure. I take it that you meant to say 'duality of
> > structure and agency'. The concept 'duality of structure' has always
> > been employed in Bhaskar's work, from PON on, so far as I am aware, to
> > denote that structure is both the condition (material cause) and the
> > ever reproduced outcome of agency. 'Duality of structure and agency'
> > denotes their existential interdependence and essential distinction,
> > with a 'hiatus' in the duality preventing conflation and making
> > 'dislocation' possible (as in social forms surviving, at the extreme,
> > without or even despite any present human agency). I am not aware that
> > Bhaskar has rejected either notion; certainly, he employs both in DPF.
> > What Archer has persuaded him of is the enormous importance of past as
> > distinct from present agency in social causation, which he has taken on
> > board in 'the negative generalization of the TMSA'. It is structural
> > reproduction/change which occurs in the present; the causal properties
> > of structures are entirely the result of past activity, much of it long
> > past, and their effects precede their reproduction/change. Bhaskar now
> > seems to agree that he did not stress this enough in his early
> > formulations, and I think that is so. (Surprisingly, neither Archer nor
> > Bhaskar acknowledges Marx on this, who assigned enormous causal weight
> > to the past. Bhaskar wants to say that Marx underestimated the weight of
> > the past programmatically, but that is a different matter and I'm not
> > sure even of that.) 
> > 
> > 3. The merit of Mao's dialectic. I'm not sure (with Bhaskar, DPF 151-2)
> > that dialectic as the unity of opposites can handle emergence, and above
> > all would want to invoke the so-called 'third law', the negation of the
> > negation, as central to dialectics. Not as the cancellation of
> > contradiction (Hegel, Stalin, where did Mao stand on this?), but in the
> > sense of Bhaskar and, as I read him, Marx as 'the geo-historical
> > transformation of geo-historical products', involving a never ending
> > process of absenting constraints on human flourishing (a logic unfolding
> > precisely 'from the premises of TMSA' as I understand it).
> > 
> > 4. Dialecticization. You seem to have in mind two related things above
> > all as constituting the 'something' which 'clashes seriously with the
> > goals and spirit' of CR. First, the inaccessibility of DPF to the
> > ordinary person. This came up at the seminar in London yesterday on
> > dialectics and DCR (Bhaskar, Ollman, Norrie). Bhaskar's response was
> > basically, 'Well, what do you think? Dialectics just is extremely
> > difficult and complex. It would be nice if, you know, human history
> > could be grasped in simple, undialectical terms, but that just isn't the
> > case' (not his exact words - the gist). You seem to accept this up to a
> > point, saying that there are two jobs to be done (I would say five or
> > six at least! We're doing part of one on the List) and that the
> > principal task now is indeed theoretical. (Incidentally, I'm not sure
> > that theoretical work is ever the principal task and would even perhaps
> > cheekily invoke Mao on the primacy of practice on my side. I think we
> > should have a modest estimate of our own importance - indispensable but
> > just one aspect of a multifaceted process. But I know and accept what
> > you mean.) But you want to say, secondly, that Bhaskar's dialectic is
> > *unnecessarily* complex and difficult - 'grandiose and all-embracing'.
> > I've stated in other posts why I think it needs to 'overreach' other
> > philosophies. But another issue that has surfaced from time to time,
> > including yesterday, is the extent to which he is 'encroaching' on the
> > domain of social science and history. Ollman argued that his system
> > doesn't just flow from transcendental arguments, he is actually a very
> > creative *abstracter* from the real, and Bhaskar seemed to accept that
> > yes, there was a role for 'positive abstraction' in his work. I think
> > this is so - the concept of 'generalized master-slave type relations',
> > for example, is an abstraction which can't be transcendentally deduced.
> > But I don't see any problem with that, other than that he perhaps needs
> > to indicate in his work more clearly what flows from deduction and what
> > from abstraction. On the contrary, I think creative abstraction
> > indispensable to his project, which can be viewed as nothing less than
> > to articulate a *general conceptual schema* (philosophical ontology) for
> > the social sciences comparable to the schemas unifying some of the
> > natural sciences (or as Alan Norrie put it yesterday, 'a philosophical
> > backbone' for the social sciences); the lack of such a schema, he said
> > in his very first book (RTS), is what is really the matter with the
> > social sciences. That, it seems to me, given the central role of social
> > science in the dialectic of desire to freedom, is a tremendously
> > important project from an emancipatory point of view and puts the sheer
> > scope of the project in a different light.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Howie Chodos <howie-AT-magi.com> writes
> > >Some initial reactions to Mervyn's and Gary's responses to my previous post.
> > >
> > >1. Does _Critical Realism: Essential Readings_ exist in a paperback
> > >edition? Barnes & Noble only lists it in hardback at US$115.
> > >
> > >2. Mervyn cites Margaret Archer as an example of someone whose work employs
> > >dialectics. While I think there is much of merit in her "Morphogenetic
> > >Realism" (in particular her account of emergence), I also think it is
> > >deeply flawed, and in a way that I would be inclined to characterise as
> > >undialectical. In fact, I find it extremely curious that RB seemed to agree
> > >with Archer's criticism of the basic argument for the TMSA. 
> > >
> > >At the inaugural Centre for Critical Realism conference at Warwick, when RB
> > >introduced Archer he presented her as being one of the few intellectuals
> > >who had been able to convince him that he was wrong about something. He
> > >then seemed to endorse Archer's position that to embrace the idea of a
> > >duality of structure was to conciliate with the 'central conflationism' of
> > >Anthony Giddens's Structuration Theory, and that he had been wrong to have
> > >argued that the TMSA had many affinities with Giddens's approach.
> > >
> > >The problem, as I see it, is that to reject the duality of structures is to
> > >lose the possibility of seeing structures as being both ontologically
> > >distinct from individuals, yet also existentially intertwined with them
> 
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> 
> 




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