File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0006, message 238


Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 23:42:21 -0500 (CDT)
From: viren viven murthy <vvmurthy-AT-midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject: RE: BHA: Explanatory Power


Hi Collin et al.,

On the issue of theory choice it may be helpful to focus on what Bhaskar
says  about explanatory power, which may give us more insight into what
one means by claiming that he does not give us criteria for theory choice.
Bhaskar does provide the RRREI(C) model of "applied scientific
explanation", but this is not criteria, but a process.  As for criteria, I
think, the following quote supports Collin's interpretation but also
underlines the importance of epistemology:  "Next, comes the elimination
of what will always constitute a plurality of possible causes for a
concrete applied explanation to have been said to have been provided,
given one's explanatory objectives."(133)  Here we see that explanation
also dependendent on explanatory objectives and not on the ontological
objects of inquiry.  In any case, it seems to me that Bhaskar would say
that criteria for theory choice is dependent on both explanatory
objectives and ontological objects.  However, to escape relativism, he
must state that there is some way of choosing between explanatory
objectivies with respect to ontological objects.  Otherwise, one could
always deny a given persons results, because one has different explanatory
objectives.

Best,

Viren

On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, Colin Wight wrote:

> Hi Mervyn,
> 
> I'm not sure how people are misconstruing my position so horribly. So let's
> try and set the matter straight. Folks are obviously free to carry on
> misconstruing and ignoring important qualifiers. More to the point, and
> leaving aside whether my position is misconstrued or not, no one has, in my
> humble opinion, come close to showing, not only what something like a
> criteria for theory choice might be like, but how one might be possible.
> 
> 
> 
> 1. 	I have insisted that in most cases all knowledge claims will have an
> empirical 	referents: I have tried to steer clear of putting this in terms
> of transitive and 	intransitive objects for obvious reasons.
> 
> 2.	RB (certainly pre-FEW) does see the empirical as only a very partial part
> of reality, hence purely empirical criteria can not apply and need not be
> privileged. Some science, still deserving of the name science, have very
> limited access to empirical data. (see 4 for further clarification)
> 
> 3.	The argument from ontology to epistemology is perfectly in accord with
> CR. The appropriate epistemological criteria cannot be determined in advance
> of ontological considerations of the object domain. CR rests or falls on
> this. RB reverses the western dogma of prioritising epistemological matter
> over ontological ones.
> 
> 4.	Your claim:" Roy does seem to be stipulating at least one general a
> priori rule: choose 	the explanatorily most adequate theory i.e. the one
> which goes beyond its rivals in terms 	of the phenomena it can explain
> (empirical control!) including hopefully the rivals
>  	themselves." simply begs the question since the phenomena (the empirical
> control) are 	not in themselves the explanation, but are what requires
> explanation; an explanation 	which may well, and probably will, incorporate
> much more than empirical elements; i.e. retroduction and retroduction etc...
> 
> 
> >
> > I think your position also begs the question of how, if not ultimately
> > empirically in some sense, the nature of the object *can* determine the
> > relevant epistemological considerations.
> 
> It's not a matter of determining Mervyn in the sense of the ontic fallacy,
> but it is a matter of arriving at epistemological criteria which are
> appropriate to the object domain.
> 
> A
> > Roy has always insisted that the results of the transcendental arguments
> > establishing a philosophical ontology for science must ultimately stand
> > the test of a posterior science.
> 
> Exactly, but the philosophical ontology RB develops implies no commitment to
> a restrictive epistemology, or the privileging of some criteria over others;
> it requires the test of an a posterior science and one that can't be
> delimited in advance, precisely because of the nature of the philosophical
> ontology he has developed; stratified, differentiated and relational. Such
> an ontology will require many modes of access.
> 
> There is nothing wrong with this as such from my (agnostic)
> > point of view - in fact, I welcome the notion of a theological strand
> > within CR, but I think we do need means of distinguishing theology from
> > science, and empirical control is one of them. When you say things
> > intended to belittle the role of the empirical like
> 
> Well since I haven't abandoned empirical data, this misses the point. More
> important, if you rely only on empirical data then you leave a whole raft of
> other epistemological objections to religion which can support your
> empirical claims. Moreover, RB's God differs substantially from the
> traditional notion of a Christian God, and its refutation (if desired) may
> well take a form different from claims re Christ etc. Empirical data are
> never brute explanation in and of themselves. But you know this. However, I
> sense in many posts on this issue still that same sense of longing that the
> empiricism sought to fill. Just because RB has gone off the deep end so to
> speak, does not mean that we need negate the gains of CR and regress to a
> naive, or sophisticated, form of empiricism. We don't know what
> epistemological arguments we can muster against any ontological claim until
> we have some idea of the content of the claim.
> 
> 
> > it seems to me you are indeed on the edge of the slippery slope, Colin
> > (the last place you want to be in respect of theology, you could forgive
> > me for inferring). It is *only* via the positive (empirically detectable
> > effects) that we can come to know causal mechanisms as real, satisfying
> > both a causal and a perceptual criterion for ascribing reality.
> 
> Exactly, so what in my position negates this. However, if you are according
> primacy to the empirical what philosophical warrant to do have for the
> allusion to causal mechanism which can only be inferred from empirical data.
> To give primacy to the empirical in advance is to slip into empiricism,
> whatever the claims to the contrary.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> =================================> Dr. Colin Wight
> Department of International Politics
> University of Wales, Aberystwyth
> Tel: 01970 621769
> http://www.aber.ac.uk/~cow
> ==================================> 
> 
> 
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