File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0007, message 23


Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 17:13:36 +0100
From: Colin Wight <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Everything


Hi mervyn,

Thanks for your comments. Since we seem to agree that:

>So, using what resources you have, you make an assessment re the
>relative power of the available theories. What else? I've never
>suggested there are an automatic set of rules that apply themselves.

And mine and Doug's posiition is that the resources we have can't specified
in advance, apart from a notion of rules of thumb, or what I call the
epistemological toolbox. I don't know if you would dissent from this view now.

Quite frankly, like Doug, I don't really see what the alternative position
is. The particular configuration of epistemic supports for particular
theories will vary with the particular theories and the object domain. 


However, on the issue of scientists choosing theories and politicians, the
AIDS\ example is very apt since, Mbeki is drawing on scientists to support
his view. So the distinction is not that easy to make (which is not to say
that it can't be made). The point is that one doesn't have to go too far
down the road with Kuhn et.al. to accept the point that scientists are not
always dispassionate/apolitical observers of empirical evidence. And that
all sorts of spurious factors go into theory choice. factors we may like to
not be in the mix, but given that we accept, both the fallibility of our
knowledge and its socially constructed nature, ones which I doubt can be so
easily sidelined.

I know you know this of course.

>This overlooks that Bhaskar also argues that the various object domains
>also have much in common - notably an ontology of causal powers and
>ontological depth -  and that there are a number of 'compensators' to
>the 'limits of naturalism'. For my own views and review of the arguments
>re naturalism see Alethia 2:1, April 1999.

I don't think I have overlooked the universal elements in the equation. I
accept them readily. More than that, since what we are talking about is
"human ways of knowing" the epistemic criteria we do employ are also going
to be universal in a sense; i.e. the there are only so many human ways of
coming to know the world. So there is universalism (similarity) in both the
intransitive and transitive dimensions. However, how this universality
plays out will vary depending on the specific claims being advanced and the
object domain. Theoretical physics, for example, is much more based on
rationalism and conventionalism than medicine, for example (and please note
the "much more", which should not be taken to mean excludes or ignores
other criteria - the issue is one of the relative mixtures).

Cheers,


============================================

Dr. Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Wales
SY23 3DA
Tel: (01970) 621769 


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