File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0003, message 25


From: "Colin Wight" <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: BHA: RE: More on TD/ID
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 11:19:48 -0000


Hi Nick,

When Bhaskar adds

> "This latter [TD] must logically be extended to include the whole
> material and cultural infrastructure of society."

What I take him to mean, is that the production of scientific knowledge,
indeed any form of knowledge is a social process that depends upon a range
of factors beyond the mere thought of an intransitive object. We would all
accept this I presume. But I think your claim that the distinction can be
drawn along the lines of:

 Where social being does not mediate
> the existence of some aspect of being we are dealing with
> intransitivity.

Is surely incorrect. We can only know the world through our descriptions of
it, hence when we attempt to describe the intransitive domain we are
mediating it through social being, but this doesn't mean that X is no longer
intransitive to our descriptions of it. As I read your argument, the only
truly intransitive is that which is never mediated by social being. This
makes intransitive objects impossible in science since science is a social
process. And even then the unknown can be mediated by social being and
remain unknown.

Cheers,




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