File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0006, message 203


Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 14:50:32 +1000
From: Brad Shipway <bshipway-AT-scu.edu.au>
Subject: RE: BHA: RE: adjudicating between knowledge claims


Hi, and thanks to Doug, Ruth, Colin, and Viren,

>I may be unfamiliar with this or know it under a different name.  First,
>are you talking about an evolutionary epistemology or evolutionary theory?

>If are you saying that
>some theologians subscribe to Dawkins' view of evolution, i.e., the selfish
>gene, etc.,  I am surprised to learn that.

I was thinking of Evolutionary Epistemology a la Plotkin (1993) "Darwin
Machines and the Nature of Knowledge". Also Dawkins and Campbell etc.  They
seem to be arguing for Evolutionary Epistemology as a way of understanding
human rationality as having biological roots. If knowledge is viewed as a
Darwinian adaptation, just the same as an opposable thumb, this then lets
things such as virtue, altruism, faith, charity, morality, sacrifice and
conceptions of reality be explained in purely biological terms. In this
way, I sometimes think that the proponents of E.E. might class it as a
metatheory. The Hard-line E.E. takes the view that the Darwinian two-step
of chance and contingency has finally eliminated God altogether, and that
metaphysical beliefs are epiphenomenal features of the evolution of an
inward-directed brain, whereas the Systems Theorist departs from the
hard-line specifically at the point of metaphysical beliefs, and takes the
view that because natural selection is driving everything, the very fact
that metaphysical beliefs exist means that they are significant, i.e. they
have been selected for.


I think there do seem to be theologians, especially those who use the term
critical realism (ThCR), that subscribe to E.E., although perhaps not to
the hard-line brand that Dawkins advances. Barbour, McGrath, Peters,
Polkinghorne and the like may be included here. Huyssteen (1998) "Duet or
Duel: Theology and Science in a Postmodern World" seems at times (still
thinking about this..) to take a very similar historical view of science as
Bhaskar. They see E.E. and critical realism (ThCR) as possibly providing
what they call an "epistemologically safe place" in which science and
religion can dialogue. 

"This opens up a door, beyond the postmodern crisis of continuity, to
theologize with a tradition whose continuity no longer has to be guaranteed
by a foundationalist metaphysics of history. In this way we are empowered
to criticize our traditions while standing in them, but also to allow a
particular history to speak for itself without being subsumed under the
umbrella of an all-encompassing theory, based on a series of texts and
interpretations which we have endowed with a particular authority and which
function then as the accepted ideology of a specific community. On this
view our traditions and also our research traditions - those interpretive
sets of theories that we construct to make sense of the continuities and
discontinuities of our traditions - thus do not have to represent
repressive consensus of authority, but can indeed rather be seen as a
creative field of concerns within which both consensus and dissent,
continuity and discontinuity, acquire coherence and intelligibility."
(Huyssteen, 1998 pp. 19).

Although they deal with western religion, I think that maybe ThCR would
allow for the inclusion of something like Fritjof Capra's "Tao of Physics"
to join the dialogue.

>From the discussion generated by FEW (still waiting for my copy), I am
wondering what others think about where/how metaphysical beliefs, and the
rationality of same fits into DCR? 

>Although evolution does seem driven by one, central mechanism, this is
>misleading.  For anything concrete to happen, you have to add contextual
>detail.  From the mere mechanism of blind variations and selective
>retention, it is not possible a priori to have predicted any -- let alone
>all -- of the species that have come to exist.  Even to explain that, we
>need to know their environment, their competitors, ecological niche, etc.
>All of these are additional, contextual mechanisms that affect evolution.
>So even with that one central mechanism, the theory of evolution does not
>imply a closed system.  In fact, as you are probably aware, it now seems to
>be opening up even further to include cosmic collisions, impact of the
>moon, etc.

Okay, I think I am getting it. Doug, when you speak about mechanisms here,
are you alluding to those that operate in the domain of the Real, as
opposed to the domains of the Actual and the Empirical? Your comments here
have also got me thinking about the similarities between Bhaskar's
stratification of nature, and the nested hierarchies model of E.E. Again,
interesting similarities; one strata can influence the other, but is not
irreducible to the other. Collier's (Intro to RB's Philosophy) explanation
of stratification of Kinds of Being 9pp.108) might be seen to be similar to
Plotkin's description of nested hierarchies.

>Hope this helps.
Yes, thank you very much Doug.

Hi Ruth. 

Let me preface my following comments with a cowardly disclaimer, please
note that I used the term "embryonic" as opposed to "infant", to emphasis
the pre-birth state.
In answer to your question:

>I'm wondering if you, and/or others, would tell me a little bit more about
>precisely how you see critical realism helping with the issue of how to
>adjudicate between competing accounts -- i.e., broadly speaking, the issue
>of justification.

I would have said that, for example, if upon examination theory A displays
that it is underpinned by the epistemic fallacy, and that theory B is not,
or that theory A does not take into account the stratification of nature
and theory B seems to, then DCR has enabled me to make a judgement about
the fecundity of each theory.  I would have said that, but the exchange
between yourself and Colin shows that I have oversimplified, does it not? I
must actually confess to having "that account of justification that covers
all cases" that Colin spoke of - can't seem to outgrow the search for
absolute certainty.

Keeping that confession in mind, however, there still remains for me the
question that 
Viren raised: how is an ontological vacuum different to relativism?

Also, if I could further expose my ignorance by asking one more question.
You mentioned:

>Add to this the idea that intelligible DISagreement implies at least some
>degree of "commensurability," and I agree with these as conditions of
>possibility for adjudication.  But Brad said that cr gives him the tools for
>the actual adjudicating, too.  And you seem in places to suggest as much
>also.  I'm interested in this, because I tend to see it as NOT giving much
>more than the (absolutely crucial) conditions of possibility part. 

If CR gives us the conditions of the possibility of adjudication, then
(given a specific circumstance), how, or from what quarter is the actual
adjudication enabled? Isn't the possibility of adjudication existing, but
the actual adjudication never happening similar to an unexercised power? Is
a permanently unexercised power the same as not having the power? 

>More to the point, though, if
>there is a *philosophical*, as opposed to a first-order scientific question,
>it is: what kinds of considerations get to be part of the "why," and does cr
>tell us anything new or interesting about this?  My secret belief, as I've
>said, is that it doesn't -- not really.

I guess this is why I am excited about the conference coming up, I really
would love to hear what others think CR is "good for".


A couple of quickies for those interested in the coincidental similarities
between CR and ThCR; do these mean anything?

McGrath (1998)
The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion
Oxford: Blackwell p. 158
"It might indeed be argued that it is repressive and uncreative to suggest
that the Compton wavelength of an electron is 2.424309X10 (-12) meters, or
that DNA possesses the structure of a double helix. Each of these could be
argued to be intransigent, representing the interests of the western male
scientific establishment, and failing to respect creativity. The intense
difficulty with such objections is that experimental research, often linked
with theoretical considerations, shows that this is the way things are -
and further asserts that these conclusions are independent of the gender,
social status, religion, and sexual orientation of the observer"

Am I mistaken, or would the Bhaskarian philosophy of science agree?

"The parallel with religion is therefore not exact. The Christian doctrine
of the incarnation may be taken to affirm the interaction of God with human
history and culture, and thus pointing to the inevitability of the
intermingling of historically and culturally conditioned elements (such as
language and imagery) into the way in which God and the Christian life are
conceived. Nevertheless, a critically realist theology would wish to affirm
that the realities which it attempts to describe and interpret are prior to
such description and interpretation, and in some manner control the nature
of the description and interpretation."

If we took the western conception of Christianity and replaced it with the
broader term "metaphysical belief", how would this comment sit with DCR?

Best regards,

Brad Shipway
Southern Cross University
Lismore, NSW, 2480
Australia




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