File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0007, message 39


From: "Marsh Feldman" <Marsh-AT-uri.edu>
Subject: Re: BHA: Predictive Powers
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 07:30:14 -0400


This sounds like Habermas. I don't buy it at all. Not all social practices,
including science, have a rational purpose (what's the purpose of religion),
particularly something as specific as survival of the species. Furthermore,
one major contribution of realism is to point out that (1) predictions have
no purchase in open systems and (2) even in closed systems science is
concerned with explicating causal mechanisms through corroboration of
multiple and independent scientific "interventions," none of which need
involve predictions.

    Marsh Feldman

----- Original Message -----
From: "suvir misra" <suvirmisra-AT-hotmail.com>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 3:12 AM
Subject: Re: BHA: Predictive Powers


> The concept of explanatoy power is absolutely confusing in the light of
the
> fact that justification and eplanation are interwined. It is not the
stories
> of justificatio that we attach to a theory that increases its aceptability
> but the number of predictions it can make that does so. Truth need not be
> harped upon in any realism it is the predictive tools that help the humans
> to come in terms with the situations and his life world by increasing its
> survival probability that have to be looked into. So the stories of
> 'explanatory powers ' misses the point by miles.
>
> suvir
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
> To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 6:15 PM
> Subject: Re: BHA: Everything
>
>
> > Hi Colin
> > >The problem is that explanatory power defined in terms of the range of
> > >phenomena, doesn't even come close to addressing three basic concerns.
> One,
> > >it a purely quantitative measure.
> > I would have thought that if a theory can inter alia explain another
> > we're talking quality and not just quantity.
> >
> > >Most importantly though it
> > >completely misses that what is often most a dispute in science is
exactly
> a
> > >dispute about which theory can explain what.
> > 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.
> >
> > >see the AIDS example, which you simply read off as an easy case with
> > >Mbeki, obviously wrong. Well, I might agree but I don't see how
appealing
> > >to explanatory power helps, because for Mbeki, Western explanantions of
> > >AIDS are simply wrong
> > Are we talking about how scientists should choose between theories or
> > about which theory gets adopted by the politicians or master class?
> > Surely the former. Imo you're muddying the waters here.
> >
> > >For CR there are two
> > >conditions of possibility for science (intransitive objects/transitive
> > >objects). If these condition hold then science is possible. But given
> that
> > >there are different object domains then the specific form of each
science
> > >will differ according to the object domain. So Bhaskar's non-positivist
> > >naturalism is a very thin version of science at best. If people are
> unhappy
> > >with this and want a more formally complete account, then build it, but
> it
> > >is not in CR.
> > 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.
> >
> > Mervyn
> >
> >
> >
> >      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >
>
>
>      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>



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