From: "Erik Weissengruber" <epweissengruber-AT-hotmail.com> Subject: Re: BHA: RE: RE: Re: Theology and critical realist praxis Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 19:55:17 EDT Has anyone looked at their Subject Line lately?!?! Everyone keeps re-printing "theology and critical realist praxis," when they are no longer discussing that topic. So to bring it all back home ... 1) IF one accepts the notion of "NON-EMPIRICAL Evidence" as pertinent to Critical Realism, does one then admit Theology and Mystical Experience as components of Critical Realism. -- I myself suspect that one could come up with a number of definitions of non-empirical evidence that would be acceptable within CR, or conventional materialism, which would exclude any conceivable type of theology or mysticism. 2) If we are parsimonious about what counts as evidence, could we then limit acceptable evidence to those pieces of evidence that can be empirically verified? Would such a limit necessarilly eliminate the possibility of theology? Some theologians, believers, and mystics would then offer a number of pieces of "empirical" evidence for their beliefs. -- Most miracles, supernatural interventions, divine messages, intimations of immortality couldn't stand up to even the most basic standards of empirical verification. But the sheer multitude of claims to be investigated would be overwhelming. NOTE to HANS. I am intrigued as to the nature of "NON-Empirical evidence." I remember your discussion of the epistemological shortfalls of econometrics. You claimed in this discussion that, despite the superfluity of empirical measurments that have been made, econometrics is in no way a truly "scientific" discipline. Would your DISCUSSION function as "non-empirical" evidence in a later discussion of this issue (I used it as evidence to back up my position in a recent argument) NOTE to TOBIN I read your article in JDTC, and loved it. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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