Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:15:05 +1000
From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au>
Subject: BHA: Begin the Dialectic


Fellow Listtees,

I will post tomorrow the first of two posts on Diffracting the dialectic,
but I thought I would warm us up with this post on the dialectic from the
paper I gave at Essex. Some of it has appeared on the list before, I think,
but it will do no harm I hope to put it all in here.

regards

Gary

Of the dialectic and the development of Dialectical Critical Realism  
   Few concepts in philosophy have engendered as much controversy,
misunderstanding and, it must be said, opprobrium as that of the dialectic.
Indeed Bhaskar himself describes the dialectic as the 'most complex - and
hotly contested - concept' (Bhaskar, 1993: 15). One of the most influential
sources of an anti-dialectical attitude has been the work of Karl Popper.
Throughout a long career he repeatedly attacked the dialectic and Hegelian
thought in general. Something of Popper's loathing (sic) of both Hegel and
his dialectical method can be gauged from this quotation:
	Hebel's fame was made by those who prefer a quick initiation into the
deeper secrets of this world to the laborious technicalities of a science,
which, after all, may only disappoint them by its lack of power to unveil
all mysteries.  For they soon found out that nothing could be applied with
such ease to any problem whatsoever, and at the same time with such
impressive (though only apparent) difficulty, and with such quick and sure
but imposing success, nothing could be used as cheaply and with so little
scientific training and knowledge, and nothing would give such a
spectacular scientific air, as did Hegelian dialectics, the mystery method
that replaced 'barren formal logic' (Popper, 1974: 27-8).
   I shall return to the specific relations between the Hegelian and the
Bhaskarian dialectics. In so doing I shall attempt to form a judgement as
to what extent the strictures against Hegel's dialectic are a) justifiable
and more importantly b) applicable to the dialectic of DCR, but first some
history.
   Bhaskar has pointed out that the dialectic did not begin with Hegel.
Indeed its origins lie in the Eleatic and Ionian traditions of Greek
Philosophy. The Eleatic strand provided the impetus for the dialectic as
the art of conversation, discussion and reasoning. The foremost exemplar of
this mode of dialectic was to become Socrates. Dialectic in this case meant
above all a means of reaching truth through reason. However within the
Ionian tradition, dialectic meant process. This process typically meant the
establishment of a higher reality, usually God or the Forms, and then the
manifestation of this higher reality at a lower level in the world.
   Hegel combined the Eleatic and Ionian strands to produce a dialectic
which began with Reason - the Absolute, which is then alienated and becomes
something other than itself, only to have its original unity restored when
it recognises that the alienation is only the manifestation of itself
(Bhaskar, 1993: 17-18). Marx took over the dialectic from Hegel and
attempted to rescue it from Idealism by substituting matter for Reason and
the Absolute. However the Marxian dialectic still retained a preference for
a dialectical process which was both built around internal contradictions
and proceeded in an autogenetic and linear manner.
   Michael Forster in his defence of the Hegelian dialectic lists three
standard criticisms of Hegel's method (Forster, 1993: 130-70). Firstly
there is the charge from Popper that Hegel 'affirms contradictions'. The
second accusation against the Hegelian dialectic is that it proceeds in a
linear and automatic fashion. The third objection is that the dialectic is
necessarily constructed around the alleged self-contradictoriness of our
fundamental categories.
   I do not have the space to deal in detail with Forster's defence of
Hegel except to note that it is weakened by his acceptance of the
fundamental premise of the attack, namely that being or reality is logical
(Forster, 1993: 142). The underlying error in this case is the definition
of being in terms of thought or logic. Bhaskar advances a transcendental
argument here that things would not change unless there were contradictory
forces and processes at work. But we do in fact know that change exists
(Bhaskar, 1993: 75), therefore being is not reducible to logic.
   Whatever the merit, however, of the objections, that Forster has listed,
to the Hegelian (and Marxist) dialectic they do not apply in Bhaskar's
case. The Bhaskarian dialectic differs from its Hegelian predecessor in
several very important ways. To begin with Bhaskar's dialectic is
four-termed unlike Hegel's triad. Thus where Hegel has identity, negativity
and totality, Bhaskar has non-identity, negativity, totality and
transformative agency. Moreover negativity and totality are given radically
different interpretations to Hegel  within the DCR model (Bhaskar, 1993:
xiii).
   The first term of Bhaskar's dialectic, non-identity, implies a strong
rejection of Hegel's identification of subject and object in thought.
Bhaskar incorporates into his concept of non-identity most of the crucial
concepts which have informed from the beginning the whole Critical Realist
project. Thus we have the notions of a structured, stratified and
differentiated reality, the separation of epistemology and ontology within
ontology, the transitive and intransitive dimensions, emergence, change and
openness. This first element in the dialectic constitutes the first moment
(1M) in the new model of Dialectical Critical Realism (Bhaskar, 1993: 8).
   The second term of Bhaskar's dialectic, negativity, is the narrowly
dialectic moment. It has to be understood in terms of Bhaskar's expansion
of ontology to include non-existence or absence. Here Bhaskar rejects the
whole tradition of Western philosophy, which he traces back to Parmenides,
of seeing reality in purely positive terms. Bhaskar labels this as the
error of 'ontological monovalence' and argues that the chief result of this
tradition has been to
=85 erase the contingency of existential questions and to despatialize and
detemporalise (accounts of) being (1993: 7).
The metaphor which Bhaskar employs to underscore the contrast between his
ontology and the positive ontology of the Parmenidean tradition is that of
the
=85 positive as a tiny, but important ripple on the surface of a sea of
negativity (1993: 5). 
 The second term of the Bhaskarian dialectic, negativity, forms what
Bhaskar terms the second edge (2E) of his model.
   It is worth pointing out here the radical potential in the rejection of
ontological monovalence. Parmenides denied the reality of time, plurality
and motion, that is his philosophy served to naturalise and thus support
Das Bestehende - the existing state of affairs. Interestingly Ernst Bloch
developed a somewhat parallel concept to ontological monovalence, which he
called 'been-ness'. This referred primarily to Plato's description of
knowledge as anamnesis or remembering of something seen before. In other
words Plato, under the influence of Parmenides, rejected novelty and
change, or, as Bloch put it, the Not-Yet-Being (Bloch, 1986: 141).
   I shall be dealing later with some of the differences between the
Hegelian and Bhaskarian dialectical moments, when I come to discuss the
diffraction of the dialectic. But here I will note that in DCR there is no
automatic process of aufhebung or sublation from one term to another.
Bhaskar's dialectic accounts for dialectical connection as well as
contradiction, the latter being seen as a special case of the former.
   Most importantly for Bhaskar only a sub-class of dialectical
contradictions involve logical contradictions and these may be described
and potentially explained without contradiction. Nor do the processes
involved in the dialectical moment automatically lead to progression to a
higher level as they do in the Hegelian system. Within the DCR dialectic,
development can also mean relations of regression, retrogression and decay.
   The third term of Bhaskar's dialectic, totality, marks another important
departure from the Hegelian and indeed some instances of the Marxist
versions of this notion. Within the Hegelian totality we have the
phenomenon of closure which gives us theses such as Fukuyama's the 'end of
history'.  Bhaskar's totality by contrast is radically open and perhaps to
emphasise this point he talks most often of totalities. So the Bhaskarian
dialectic does not provide us with an automatic passage to the end of
history be that interpreted as the Absolute as in Hegel or as Communism in
Marx's Manifesto. 
   This third term of the Bhaskarian dialectic forms the third level (3L)
of the DCR model. Given the troubled history of the concept of totality it
is important to emphasise that the Bhaskarian totality is not an expression
of a single element as in the expressivist totality of vulgar Marxism, for
example Nikolai Bukharin. With the latter the superstructure is seen as the
straightforward expression of the economic base (Bukharin, 1925).
   This very openness of the Bhaskarian totality necessitates a fourth
element in his dialectic, namely that of agency. It is agency, which if
allied to projects that are grounded in rationality, may produce the
eudemonistic or good society where humanity as a species can flourish
(Bhaskar, 1993: 9). This element of the dialectic, agency, is characterised
as the fourth dimension (4D) within the DCR model.
   To sum up this section, the DCR dialectic is four termed rather than
triadic as in Hegel's system. The Bhaskarian dialectic is like the Marxian
dialectic in that it is grounded in ontology rather than in ideas as with
Hegel. However Bhaskar gives us a unique account of ontology in that it is
built round the notion of absence. Moreover the Bhaskarian dialectic
differs from its Hegelian and some of its Marxist predecessors in that it
provides no guarantees. Whether we reach the eudemonistic society or not
depends on us rather than on some autogenetic linear process.

Diffracting the Dialectic
The diffraction of the dialectic is dealt with in considerable detail in
Bhaskar (1993). However an interestingly earlier step towards this process
is taken in Reclaiming Reality where he discusses the possibilities raised
by Marx's critique of Hegel' philosophy of identity.  Here Bhaskar argues
that:
One possibility raised by Marx's critique of Hegel's philosophy of identity
is that the dialectic in Marx (and Marxism) may not specify a unitary
phenomenon, but a number of different figures and topics.  Thus it may
refer to patterns or process in philosophy, science or the world; being,
thought or their relation (ontological, epistemological and relational
dialectics); nature or society, 'in' or 'out of' time (historical or
structural dialectics); which are universal or particular, trans-historical
or transient and so on (Bhaskar, 1989: 119, original emphasis).
Taking our cue from this we can say that the Critical Realist dialectic
cannot be contained within a simple triadic formula of the thesis -
antithesis - synthesis kind. We should note here that Hegel never used this
formulation to describe his dialectic. Nor does Bhaskar employ this
terminology.
   Bhaskar takes his starting point for the diffraction of the dialectic
from Marx's materialist critique of the idealism of the Hegelian dialectic
(Bhaskar, 1993:86-96). By contrast with the unity of the Hegelian Absolute,
Marx's critique emphasises that the world is differentiated. As a
consequence the dialectic if it is to accord with the 'complexities,
angularities, nuances of our pluriversal world' must itself be diffracted.
Diffraction allows us, Bhaskar argues, to call upon a host of 'topologies,
choreographies and genealogies' (Bhaskar, 1993: 96).
   Bhaskar gives two kinds of definition of dialectic. The first is tied
closely to his extension of the notion of ontology or reality to include
absence. Here dialectic is the process of
=85the absenting of absence, and in the human realm as the specifically
efficacious agentive...absenting of absence (1993: 173).
Bhaskar also expands the intension of the dialectic to mean
=85merely any sort of relationship between differential elements, which can
obviously be put through a variety of hoops (1993: 174).
   Following then this process of diffraction one can approach a text and
identify and analyse the variety of dialectics at work. However there is a
crucial moment in this analysis. The dialectic having been diffracted must
also be retotalised. For Bhaskar it is the dialectics of absence that will
perform this role (1993: 98). What then are the 'dialectics of absence'?
This is the process by which conflictual interaction becomes change that
can be regarded as absenting. The dialectic generally involves the
absenting of absences. Most crucially those constraints which are
preventing the absenting of ills are themselves absented. This leads to a
general human flourishing and the development of human flourishing in
nature (Bhaskar, 1993: 177).
   There have of course been objections to this widening of the dialectic.
Thus John Mingers commented:
	His generalisation of 'dialectic' beyond the Hegelian...seems to me to
make it so general that it includes almost any form or dynamic relationship
between entities, events, or process (Mingers, 10.6.97).
Mingers went on to ask:
Does he (Bhaskar) mean it this widely? If so haven't we lost a useful term?
(ibid)
   The answers to these questions are - yes and no. The 'yes' is qualified,
though, by the definition of dialectical connection as being
=85between entities or aspects of a totality such that they are in principle
distinct but inseparable (Bhaskar, 1993: 58).

References

Bhaskar,  R., _Reclaiming Reality_, London: Verso, 1989
__________, _Dialectic: The pulse of Freedom_, London: Verso, 1993
Bloch, E., _The Principle of Hope_, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986
Bukharin, N., Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology,  New York:
International Publishers, 1925
Forster, _Hegel's Dialectical Method_ in Beiser, F.C. (ed) _The Cambridge
Companion to Hegel_, New York:  Cambridge University Press, 1993: 130-70
Mingers, J., _Bhaskar List Posting_, 10. 6. 1997
Popper, K., The Open Society and its Enemies, Volume 2, Hegel and Marx_,
London: Routlege, 1974



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