From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: BHA: Re: How is New York Today- fate of [Social Science]?
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 15:37:04 -0500


Hi Mervyn and Marsh--

Mervyn, you wrote:

>              The transitive/intransitive distinction has
> been adapted from grammar. A transitive verb changes its object
> ('expresses an action which passes over into the object' according to
> the Concise OED), an intransitive verb does not. Is not this the exact
> distinction between the two dimensions Bhaskar wishes to convey - one is
> changed by ongoing human action, the other not?

I had considered the linguistic reference as well, but it worries me for a
couple of reasons.  The first may be a triviality, but I'm troubled by
suggestions that we can understand reality or some part of it in terms of
linguistics (except of course language itself).  Bhaskar himself has noted
the "linguistic fallacy" (particularly the linguistic model of society) as a
variant of the epistemic fallacy.  Now I'm not at all saying Bhaskar is
sliding into that with these terms, but at the same time I do have to wonder
why linguistic terms seemed the most appropriate.  But as I say, this qualm
is secondary.

The other, more serious reason is that I find it hard to describe as
"intransitive" a domain which has been specifically designated as consisting
of real entities, possessing various powers and susceptibilities.  Real
entities *do* affect things other than themselves, which is the very
opposite of "representing action confined to the agent; i.e. having no
object" (to quote the definition of intransitivity that Colin gave us).  I'm
almost tempted to say the words have gotten switched.

Moreover, your very elucidation, which states that "A transitive verb
changes its object," implies that the transitive dimension changes the
intransitive dimension, and so thought changes reality (as the objects of
study)!  This surely is not whatever RB means.  So I still think the
terminological choice is problematic.

Marsh: my comments about quasi-intransitivity were rather elliptic, my
apologies.  Thoughts can and do (eventually) change society, but that is a
separate matter from the TD/ID distinction.  RB makes the point clear in
PON2, p. 47, where he distinguishes between, on the one hand, "existential
intransitivity," which is a condition of an investigation of any object
(natural or social), because this is inherent in being the *object* of
analysis; and on the other hand, "causal interdependency," which is a
feature of society resulting from the fact that society is in a specific
sense concept-dependent (the sense being that the concepts involved are
principally those of the long-dead--RB incorporated Archer's point in DPF).
This is why I pointed to the "time lag": it takes a while for ideas to
become embedded within social relations and material constructs (say, urban
systems).  Society doesn't change the instant somebody has an idea about it.
The transformation of society by theory and culture is a question of causal
processes, which operate through space and time--not one of conditions for
investigation, in which an object (no matter how it was produced) becomes an
object of study (no matter if for whatever reason it later changes).  The
latter is what the TD/ID distinction describes.

To take one of your examples, then, epistemology is created, reproduced and
transformed by human practice, just as you say.  But that is a causal
process.  However, the moment one undertakes the study of a particular
epistemological theory (let's say, when RB critiques positivism), that
theory is intransitive, for the fundamental reason that it is the object of
study, and no amount of critique will ever stop it from being the object of
study.  The critique *makes* it an object.  Intransitivity is positional.
The only thing that can remove the epistemology from this intransitive
position is to not think *about* it and instead think *through* (analyze by
means of) that theory.  In that situation it then becomes transitive,
because it is (so to speak) the thinking in action.

Another example: X is talking with Y and thinks, "Hey, this person is great,
I hope we become friends."  The thought affect's X's behavior toward Y, and
the two indeed become friends.  This is a causal process, and the friendship
is causally dependent on those thoughts.  But that has no bearing on the
fact that when X thought about Y, Y became the object of thought.  X could
decide that Y is a creep, but Y's position *as the object of thought* is
exactly the same, even though the social relationship between them has
altered.

Hope that makes sense.  Best, T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce




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