Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2000 23:20:15 +0000
From: Colin Wight <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: comments on terminology


No, No, No Ruth. 

You cannot be allowed to get away with this...

Internal realism (forget Andy, what he is saying is not at all the issue,
because he can't actually mean waht he is actually saying, and if he is not
saying it can he please, please , please not write it). problems of
language etc...

>empirical realism -
>(a) Kant's term for the idea that objects-as-they-appear-to-us are
>nonetheless real.  As opposed to the "subjective idealist" position that
>they are merely products of thought.  What Kant calls "subjective idealism,"
 Again, internal realists
>believe that there are real things out there, but that what *we* know about,
>when we know about them, is always only things-under-some-description 

This is basically RBs position. there is a real world, but we can only know
it through our descriptions of it. Internal realism, as I understand it,
says that there is a real world but we can know nothing of it, hence our
descriptions have no relations to it.

Transcendental realism, if it is
>different IN KIND, epistemologically, from this position, can only (I think)
>be the view that we know the things (viz., causal mechanisms, a.k.a. alethic
>truth), not the things-under-some-description.  

Absolutely not. RB is categrorical about this. Let me restate: "WE CAN ONLY
KNOW THINGS UNDER OUR DESCRIPTIONS OF THEM...But incidentally, because you
are fussing at the epistemological problem you are failing to see that
transcendental realism is different in kind, NOT EPISTEMOLOGICALLY, BUT
ONTOLOGICALLY. And for Bhaskar's form of realism we never KNOW (if by know
you mean with absolute certainty) the things, we know them through our
descriptions of them, but the things themselves are not our descriptions of
them. We attempt to grasp them in thought, we do not create them in thought.

I also note that you fail to address some of the problems re internal
realism that i raised.

At this stage of the game I begin to wonder where the intransitive objecct
has gone. Andy's account has no relation whatsoever to RBs position (or
mine) and your acccount Ruth, wants to portray RB as an objectivist
metaphysical realist - the kind which assumes because there is a reality we
can know it objectively. These positions have nothing to do with RBs
account. I don't have a problem with folks saying RB's account is wrong,
but let's deal with the intransitive object as it is (which only makes the
argument) not some creative construction of his position, please... Am I
irritated? Slightly, I don't delurk to debate the intracies of RB only to
debate not-RB. Apologies if I have upset anyone.

Cheers,


============================================

Dr. Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Wales
SY23 3DA
Tel: (01970) 621769 


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