File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0006, message 78


Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 10:18:22 -0500 (CDT)
From: viren viven murthy <vvmurthy-AT-midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: BHA: one last try


Hi Collin,

Thanks for your reply.  I may have been injecting too much Kant into
Bhaskar.

> 
>   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. 
> 
> But the object would not necessarily be an object in thought, it would
> still exist independent of thought. So it is quite incorrent to say that
> the minute some x becomes an object it is in the intransitive realm. It is
> correct to say that if it becomes an object of thought it exists. From
> exissting it can be either a transitive obect (if it is the thought (or
> some other construct) of an object, or an intransitive object, if the
> thought itself becomes the object of another thought about it. There is
> simply no puzzle here.

I think this problem goes to the heart of Bhaskar's project in the
Dialectic, namely the relationship between Kant, Hegel, and Bhaskar's own
conception of the relationship between our categories of thought and the
external realm.  Bhaskar defines the intransitive dimension as
the ontological realm and the transitive as the epistemological realm.
Now an object by definition involves a number of categories that Kant
would claim that we bring to experience.  Hegel would say that the
categories of thought are the categories of spirit.  Bhaskar tries to pave
a middle path ( pardon the Buddhist metaphor), but I am not completely
clear as to what it is.  I doubt that he would make the Hegelian claim
that our categories are the categories of the world.  Insofar as
categories, such as difference, are in thought they exist in the
transitive realm.  Without certain categories, we would not be able to
perceive objects.   

Moreover, I doubt that empirical objects could exist in the transitive
realm, since, by definition they depend on our experience.  Hence, I am
inclined to agree with Ruth, that Bhaskar's idea of intransitivity is most
appropriate when discussing structure.  When we say that an object exists
intransitively, I assume that this means not only independent of human
thought but of human experience.  Given these two conditions, how could we
still say that it is an object.  What would the definition of such an
object be?  Would we be able to describe any of its properties? 


 > > So it seems that something can be
> >an intransitive object in the transitive realm.  
> 
> No, I would put it that transitive objects can become intransitive objects
> to other sciences of them. Indeed this is exactly what happens with say
> Positivism. Positivism is a theory of science. As\ such it is a transitive
> object (Positivism) the intransitive object of which is the practice of
> science. But positivism, as a transitive object can be the intransitive
> object of a second order discourse that takes as its object theories of
> science as opposed to the prcatice of science.
> 
Again your comments are extremely thought provoking.  Here we have a whole
practice becoming an object.  I am hard pressed to think that practice can
independently become an object. It only becomes an object when
"objectified" by the the positivist.  Obviously we do not want to reduce
the practice to thought;  however, by claiming that this practice is an
object before the it is studied, seems to downplay the role of human
activity. 
Perhaps a related issue concerns whether the distinction between
transitive and intransitive is itself in one of the realms.  My guess is
that the distinction would have to be in the transitive realm.


Best,

Viren
> 
> 
> 
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