Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 17:30:47 +0100
From: Colin Wight <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Explanatory Power


Hi Mervyn,

On this. I have (don't have my posts here at home) addressed the first
issue. Basically it is the use of teh word "determines" which is causing
the problem in your first point. But as I have said previously, it is not
determines in the sense of the ontic fallacy, as you rightly say this would
be a denial of the autonomy of the transitive dimension. how it should be
understood is "determines" in the sense of the "most apppropriate epistemic
criteria for the object domain".

On the second issue, you seem to be missing the metaphor of the toolbox
which is limited and used by all (epistemic universality) and the fact that
I have regularly said that the universal philosophical ontology is excetly
what grounds the account Doug and i defend. So difference is not been
foregrounded at all. The point is to see how the universal relates to the
particular, which is, of course a dialectical motif. 

But the issue is really quite simple and I think it has got lost. How do
you choose between theories? My position is that this question makes very
little sense in the abstract. I can tell you the kinds of consiiderations
which will be in the toolbox; empirical criteria; rational arguments;
logical consistency; rigour; etc... What I can't tell you is what the
precise form of epistemological supports will be employed without some
specification of the theories in dispute and some indication of the object
domain (which of course will be embedded in the theories). Science is
work/practice, and the truth of a theory as Marrx put it cannot be
determined in the abstract but only in practice. incidentally, does this
make marx an instrumentalist? I wouldn't have thought so anymore than it
makes me one.

Cheers,


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

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


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