File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0006, message 117


Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 10:37:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: viren viven murthy <vvmurthy-AT-midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject: RE: BHA: one last try




Hi Marshal,

Sorry that my last e-mail was somewhat long and incoherent at places.  Let
me try to clarify.
> 
> Viren said,
> 
> >
> > Now this type of switching works only up to a point.  There are some
> > things that will stay intransitive, such as the actual "object" itself. Is
> > this what Bhaskar means by intransitive realm?  We can only know it in
> > thought, but Bhaskar's point is that we should not reduce the object to
> > thought.  Strictly speaking, it would seem that the minute that some x
> > becomes an object, it is in the transitive realm, since, we must conceive
> > of the object under certain categories.
> 
> This seems to me to be an example of the epistemic fallacy. We should not
> commit the sin of conceptual realism, but this should not stop us from being
> ontological realists.
> 
> Perhaps some examples can help us sort things out.
> 
> Dinosaurs -- nothing we can do or think will change what they really were or
> what happened to them. These things are intransitive.


This is a classic example and it does help to some degree.  Obviously no
one would want to say that by naming something a dinosaur, we actually
created a material object.  However, we should not ignore the creative
dimension to naming.  By calling something a dinosaur enforce a certain
way of classifying the world, which definitely influences our notions of
truth and validity.  So when we say "these things are intransitive", the
"these" is somewhat ambiguous.  I think by "these things" we mean some x
that we understand under the description dinosaurs, but could also be
understood under other descriptions and classifications.  


> 
> Political activism -- clearly this is influenced by human thoughts.
> Nonetheless, for the political scientist it's intransitive (if political
> activism really exists in the world).

This is interesting.  From both you and Collin's remarks, I get the
feeling that whether something is intransitive or not is dependent on the
the perspective of the knower.  So something can be intransitive for the
political scientist, but transitive for other people.


> 
> "Transitive" refers to the act of comprehension, not to the act of creation.
> "Intransitive" does not mean uninfluenced by humans. Instead, consider a
> real object, R, that we seek to understand with theory, T. "T" may contain
> one or more concepts, t sub 1, t sub 2, etc. that it claims allow us to know
> R. It may even claim that a specific concept, t*, is a complete and accurate
> description of R, and hence that t* is indistinguishable from r, the latter
> being a "true" apprehension of R in thought. Here T, the various t's, and r
> are all transitive, since they are all thought-dependent. But don't let this
> confuse you. Their thought-dependence is only in the sense that they are all
> being used to help us develop knowledge of R. R itself could be dinosaurs or
> political demonstrations. How we theorize such things does not affect the
> things themselves, at least not in the instant we do the theorizing. 

The key here is "how we theorize such things does not affect the things 
themselves."  Of course, but how we theorize defines the parameters of
inquiry and definitely affects our idea of what a "thing" is, or what
gets "thing-status".


On this point it, Hans's comments about the relationship between Bachelard
and Bhaskar are relevant.  I think Bhaskar would call Bachelard an
idealist precisely because Bachelard focuses on how our categories and
language (in particular mathematical models) influence the way we conceive
of objects and affect our conception of what is an object.

Best,

Viren

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



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

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005