Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 09:52:05 -0400
From: ERIK WEISSENGRUBER <eweissen-AT-watarts.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: BHA: Neglect of Bhaskar/Philosophy of Science


I have been mulling over strategies to get CR accepted as a new kind of
interdisciplinary "common sense," and the postings of the last few weeks
have been quite stimulating


A recent author wrote ...

>the bulk of the social scientific community simply can't be bothered
>to get to grips with RTS. This would involve getting to grips with the
>philosophy of science and their knowledge of that seem reluctant to go
>beyond Lakatos, Popper and Kuhn with the odd reference to Feyerabend thrown
>in.

A key part of Pierre Bourdieu's project seems to be informing the
formulation of social scientific questions with epistemological questions,
particularly in the philosophy of science.  

Bourdieu (at least in "The Craft of Sociology") discusses the work of the
sociologist as a kind of practice, an intervention in the real that (under
ideal conditions) creates a dynamic interplay between theoretical
constructs and empirical observation, a practice that has effects (good or
bad/desirable or undesirable) in the entire field of social practices.

Despite Bourdieu's avowed anti-ontological stance, he seems to be close to
a lot of CR ideas about the social sciences, the historical situatedness of
knowledge construction and the intransitive aspects of the real that
condition it etc.

So Bourdieu's innovations in reflexive sociology might be one tangent for
the introduction of CR ideas to the social sciences.

NOTE: Bourdieu does this amazing dissection of the
postivisist/intutitionist debate, asserting that both extremes actuall call
for and enforce the presuppositions of one another.

Moreover, he tackles the individual/collectivist dyad by suggesting that
both persons and large groups are observable entities -- but that the real
difficulty for sociology lies in finding the hidden RELATIONS between these
types of observable/measurable entities.  

Bourdieu would see relations existing on the same ontological plane as the
observed entities (if he were pushed into an ontological corner), whereas
the CR tradition would look at the causal mechanisms that, because they are
more fundamental, permit observable entities to come into being, yet there
seems to be a great similarity between the two traditions

END OF SERMON
If a French sociologist in the 60's and contemporary CR seem to be
operating on the same wavelength, perhaps we can begin to look at other
fields of knowlegdge that are experiencing a reformulation of their
fundamental assumptions, and suggest that CR is a way of addresing many of
these.

 Anyway (must be read with a very postmodern ironic tone), "we" all know
>what positivism is anyway and any approach to social inquiry that wants to
>play with science (however defined) can only be a form of smuggled in
>positivism (end irony).
>
>So CR is really a (begin irony) form of positivism and  since we are all so
>far beyond that science stuff and well into our various form of relativism
>we can neglect all that stuff and embrace our indeterminacy (end irony). Of
>course, this all takes place within an institutional context which has
>constructed these categories, and as such there is a lot of various forms of
>"capital" bundled up with the categories (science vs hermeneutics for
>example) and CR's attempt to disrupt them is always liable to fall on deaf
>ears. But, of course, it is not all deaf ears and there are some prepared to
>make the journey (i.e. the list and others). However, given the current
>structural constraints of PhD submission rates (certainly in a UK context
>where if you don't submit within the 4 year framework you get de-registered)
>it is always going to be a very brave supervisor that sends his/her student
>wanting to study X through a CR framework, scurrying off to study the
>philosophy of science.
>
>Beyond all that, and totally contradicting myself, I'm not that worried
>about it. The last thing I think CR should be doing is developing anything
>like a "school of thought" al la postmodernism. I see a lot of research
>informed by CR without necessarily wearing its CRness emblazoned on its
>sleeve. I'm probably with Heikki on this and (begin irony) we of the cult
>(end irony), probably just need to get on and put it into practice. If
>others reject a piece of research because they have skimmed the bibliography
>and seen that (begin irony) the obscurantist fool Bhaskar is cited (end
>irony), then what can you do? I certainly will lose no sleep about it.
>
>I did come across an article that addressed the issue of Bhaskar's neglect
>and I'll try and hunt out the reference if I can find it.
>
>Cheers,
>
>
>
>=================================>Dr. Colin Wight
>Department of International Politics
>University of Wales, Aberystwyth
>Tel: 01970 621769
>http://www.aber.ac.uk/~cow
>==================================>>
>
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
Professor Erik Weissengruber
University of Waterloo
Department of Drama and Speech Communication
ML 226
eweissen-AT-watarts.uwaterloo.ca
(519) 888-4567 ex. 2855


     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---