Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 17:53:53 +1000
Subject: BHA: Notes for a reading group


Colleagues,

I am running a Critical Reading Group here at QUT.  We have started on
Chapter 2 of PON.  I am sending out the following notes specifically for
the group but they may be of use to someone on the list.

regards

Gary

Introduction:

During the last reading group we spent a fair bit of time debating
empiricism, the empirical method and prediction. I thought I would have a
go at outlining what I perceive to be a Critical Realist approach to these
notions.  The solution lies in a return to Bhaskar's first book A Realist
Theory of Science (RTS). This is according to many his greatest work.  I
actually did not start my Critical Realist studies with it and in many ways
I know it much less well than his other books.  Part of the reason is that
the Bhaskarian movement is roughly speaking divided into Critical Realists
and Dialectical Critical Realists.  Again broadly speaking these groupings
can be thought as clustering around the canonical moments of RTS and
Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom (DPF) respectively.  I of course belong to
the DPF camp. But there is a unity about Bhaskar's work and I constantly
run into the reality that RTS is an essential starting point.

2. The domains of the real, the actual and the empirical

In the introduction to RTS Bhaskar outlines what he terms three domains-
the real, the actual and the empirical. The real consists of underlying
structures and mechanisms, and relations; events & behaviour; and
experiences. The structures and mechanisms generate events in the natural
world.  Relations generate behaviour in the social world.  The domain of
the actual consists of these events and behaviour. The domain of the
empirical consists of what we experience.  

It is interesting to note that it was Bhaskar's distinction between the
domain of the real and the domain of the actual that was hailed by his
teacher Rom Harre as one of the great philosophical discoveries of the 20th
century.

It is important I think to understand that the distinction between the
three domains allows one to argue that events will take place whether they
are observed or not.  The tree will grow whether we observe it or not. The
argument of course goes back to Bishop Berkeley (1695-1753).  He reduced
the domains of the real and the actual to the empirical when he said that
nothing in the world existed if it was not perceived.  When there were no
humans around to do the perceiving, the gap was filled in, according to
Berkeley, by God. This gave rise to the famous limericks by Ronald Knox: 

There was a young man who said, "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no-one about in the Quad."

And the reply

Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why this tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by
Yours faithfully,
God. (cited in Lewis, 1968: 54)

3. Laws  & Predictions and Closed and Open Systems

In some ways it is easy to make fun of Berkeley, but his arguments keep
cropping up again and again so does his solution of resorting to God or
some transcendent to fill in the gap caused by our failure to acknowledge
nature as existing independently of the human. Think here of Graeme
Turner's remarks about the relationship between language and reality.
Turner has claimed that 'language does not *describe* reality, it actually
*constitutes* it' (Turner cited in Windschuttle, 1998: 18, Turner's
emphasis) In other words man is now god and constructs nature. 

The deep confusion in Turner's position has been ruthlessly exploited by
the neo-positivist Keith Windschuttle in the debate about the status of
Media Theory and its relevance to the education of journalists
(Windschuttle, 1998; 1999).  Windschuttle describes Turner's views as
'crude and stupid' (1999: 18).  The pot has a go at the  kettle!  

Turner's views are of course far from crude as any  perusal of his account
of Media Studies in Cunningham and Turner would show. (Turner, 1993:
203-64).  Nevertheless his remark about the relationship between language
and reality is something like a combination of Kantian reduction of
ontology to epistemology and possibly a Rortyan postmodernism. He would
have however done better to say that we construct knowledge through
language, but that reality exists independent of our constructions of it.

Another area where Critical Realism diverges radically from the dominant
Philosophy of Science approach, exemplified by Popper is in the definition
of and role of 'laws'. For Popper and Hempel we have explained an event
when we have formulated a universal law from which the event can be
deduced.  The basic form of the law is: "if x then y". So prediction is
built into its formulation. If we can identify the x then we can predict
that y will follow. This also gives us the essence of empiricism, namely
the constant conjunction of events- if x then y.

Bhaskar's contribution here was to point out that the constant conjunction
of events only occurred in closed systems. Indeed the definition he gives
of a closed system is one where the constant conjunction of events occurs.
(RTS: 69). He also argued that such closed systems do not occur naturally
and that they are the outcome of a good deal of work on the part of a
scientist. 

He also pointed out that the work necessary to produce a closed system was
a transcendental proof that the world was in fact open but susceptible to
regional closures. In Possibility of Naturalism he goes on to argue that in
the social sciences it is impossible to produce a closed system.
Accordingly the Humean formula of "if x then y" does not apply in the
social sciences.  

We will eventually come onto to this in our reading.  We spent a good deal
of time around the question of prediction attached to notions that TV
causes violent behaviour, in other words if a child watches violent
television (x) then he will behave violently (y). But here, if I may, I
will take as an example the notorious Bell shaped curve which plagues our
lives every semester. This as applied in our school takes the form of if x,
i.e. a class of more than 25, then y, i.e. 15% will get a 7, 25% will get a
5 etc. Lecturers who produce results that conform to this formula have
their results passed without a murmur.  Those who failed to conform to the
formula have their results subject to scrutiny and on occasion scorn.

In Bhaskarian terms when we apply the curve we are claiming that this is
ontological determinism.  That is we are saying that reality is like this.
Our results if they are to reflect reality must conform to the curve. So
apparently at present within the Arts faculty there is a campaign being
mounted around the notion that there are too many 'fives' in the results
from the Arts faculty. The basis for saying that there are too many fives
is ostensibly the curve. Our results must be wrong for they violate an
ontological principle - they are in defiance of how reality determines
things. However what in truth is happening is not ontological determinism
for social reality does not conform to a curve.  

The notion of a curve assumes that there is a symmetry between natural and
social systems in that it ignores the factor of human agency.  It says in
effect that it does not matter how hard or not a particular group of
students may study, the results will be the same.  If they are not then the
lecturer has erred.  It thus assumes *implicitly* that classes are closed
systems where the constant conjunction of events must apply. I have
stressed 'implicitly' because of course it is impossible in QUT to get from
anyone a theoretical statement justifying the curve. In the way of
positivism no theory is needed because that is how things just are. However
any class is an open system with a variety of patterns of human agency. So
no single pattern of results is likely. What we have instead with our
adoption of the curve is epistemological pre-determination. We determine in
advance what our results will be and when they do not conform to this, and
they almost never do, we moderate, i.e. fake, them.


3. Three approaches to the philosophy of science. They are Empiricism,
neo-Kantianism and Transcendental or Critical Realism.

We had something of a debate as to what empiricism was and the distinction
between it and the empirical method.  Bhaskar uses Empiricism in two ways.
Firstly it covers the whole positivist Humean tradition and the neo-Kantian
tradition.  Basically empiricism  means those systems what assume that a
constant conjunction of events is necessary for a law.

The second use of empiricism is in classical empiricism or empirical
realism as a particular philosophy of science.  This identifies
regularities whose constant conjunction form facts.

The rival tradition of neo-Kantianism stresses the importance of the social
activity of scientists especially the models they build of the imagined or
imaginary mechanisms which would explain the regularities.

Critical realism goes a step further than Neo-Kantianism and demands that
these models of imagined mechanisms be subject to empirical testing  to
determine whether they are real or not (RTS: 14-15). The neo-Kantians
follow Kant in their belief that the reality of the models of the imagined
mechanisms they create cannot be established.

Critical Realism differs from classical empiricism in regarding the
regularities initially observed not as facts but as results of (generally)
scientific experiments.

With regard to the neo-Kantian position, it is of course not always
possible to test whether the model of a particular mechanism is real. But
if we take the example of research into the brain our ability to establish
the reality of particular models of mechanisms has improved radically since
the advent of magnetic resonance imaging.  Indeed 80% of what we now know
about how the brain works has been established within the last 5 years.
Accordingly we have to keep an open mind about what aspects of reality we
will be able to identify.

So to sum up this section then, science works as follows:
a. a regularity is identified (classical empiricism)
b. a plausible explanation of this regularity is invented (neo-Kantianism)
c. the reality of the entities and processes that have been postulated are
checked (Critical Realism) (RTS: 14).

4. Conclusion

Hopefully these notes will have established the fundamentals of the
Critical Realist approach to Science.  They are of course no substitute for
a reading of RTS. What we are hoping to get from our reading  of PON is the
uniqueness of Bhaskar's approach to social theory where he attempts to
avoid the positivist tradition which would impose the so-called laws of
nature (the constant conjunction of events and predicability) on social
systems and the hermeneutical tradition which stresses that science has
absolutely nothing to tell us about the social sciences. 

It is absolutely the key to Bhaskarian thought here to see that it stresses
that both the positivists and the hermeneuticists assume that science is
about the establishment of the constant conjunction of events and the
subsequent ability to predict.  The hermeneutical tradition simply argues
that science is not applicable to social systems.  However they are both
working with a very impoverished view of science, a view which Bhaskar has
done more than anyone to correct.

A final note on the essential radicalness of the denial of the constant
conjunction of events.  This allows for change that is for the new to
emerge.  Contrast Bhaskar here with Nietzsche and the latter's notion of
the 'eternal return' or the "same old, same old" and you will see how
revolutionary Bhaskar truly is.

References

Bhaskar, R.,  Realist Theory of Science (RTS), Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978
_________,  Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom (DPF), London: Verso, 1993
_________,  The Possibility of Naturalism (PON), London: Routledge, 1998
Lewis, J., Bertrand Russell: Philosopher & Humanist, London: Lawrence &
Wishart, 1968
Turner, G.,  Media Texts and Messages in Cunningham, S., & Turner. G. (eds)
The Media in Australia, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993: 203-64
Windschuttle, K., The Poverty of Media Theory, Quadrant March 1998: 11-18 
______________, Cultural Studies Versus Journalism, Quadrant,  March 1999:
11-20





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