From: "Colin Wight" <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: BHA: one last try
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 16:25:19 +0100


OK, I know, I know, never say never, or EVer again. One last quote from RB
himself:

"For if it is the charateristic error of positivism to ignore (or play down)
interdependcy [of social objects], it is the charateristic error of
hermeneutics to dissolve intransitivity" PON, 60.

What more can I say!

Cheers,



=================================Dr. Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Tel: 01970 621769
http://www.aber.ac.uk/~cow
==================================
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> [mailto:owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of Ruth Groff
> Sent: 06 June 2000 16:15
> To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: RE: BHA: one last try
>
>
> Hi Colin,
>
> We must be on-line at the same time!  In the absence of a Bhaskar
> chat-room
> (god forbid!) this will have to do!
>
> You wrote:
> >RB is clear that intransitive means
> >"relative to the thought of the knower in question", NOT
> "relative to human
> >thought in general". It is because it is the former and not the
> latter that
> >he claims the social sciences have intransitive objects too, hence can be
> >sciences. If it were the latter position, then social "science" would be
> >impossible in realist terms because social objects are not
> intransitive to
> >human thought in general.
>
> No.  It is not because the category "TRANSITIVE (you wrote `intransitive')
> object(s) of social science" includes only those very small number of
> "objects" that are relative to the thought of a given knower at some exact
> moment in time that social science can be thought of as being enough like
> natural science to warrant a position of (critical) naturalism.  It is
> because of the ontological gap between society and individuals, i.e.,
> because of the TMSA.  This is a very closely related point, but it is not
> the same one.
>
> Here the point is that although SOCIAL structures [those analogues of the
> natural structures that constitute the domain of the Real in the natural
> world, and that comprise the "intransitive object of (natural) science"],
> unlike natural structures, are linked to the conceptions that individuals
> have of their actions -- i.e., are in some sense concept-dependent -- this
> is not a problem because it turns out that despite their
> concept-dependency,
> structures do not reduce to individuals and are not voluntaristically
> produced by them.  THAT's why, despite the "ontological limitations" on
> naturalism, RB feels that naturalism can be defended.
>
> yrs.,
> r.
>
>
>
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