Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 11:30:21 +1000 From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au> Subject: BHA: Forwarded from Howard Re: Rethinking spoiled porridge At 03:19 16/09/00 -0400, Howard wrote: >Gary -- > >I sent this off an hour ago, but it has not appeared on the list yet. >Unfortunately, I have not been able to get through to the list from this >address -- don't know what the trouble is. I sent a reply to your >Kierkegaard, Mozart, Keats post back in June or July, but that never went >through, then I resubscribed, but now with this first effort, no luck >either, or at least yet. Anyway I wanted to get this post to you, and if >it does not show up today on the net, then please forward it to our comrades. > >I'm going out today to look for Bach's violin concertos. Do stick with >Bach. Have you ever seen 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould? Now there's a >documentary for you! Sort of. One doesn't expect much of intelligence >from government these days, but I think one of the genuinely intelligent >things government has done in the last quarter century is to send Voyager >off into space with Glenn Gould's performance of the first prelude from the >Well Tempered Clavier. Imagine what intelligent life elsewhere might make >of it? And how they would be surprised to find what life is really like on >earth!! If you can listen to Gould's performance of the Well Tempered >Clavier. In both volumes there are many wonderful things -- the 23 and 24 >cuts or whatever, I forget the word now, take you on and on and on and on >on a path of transcendence that is hard to match. This happens in number 5 >I think it is also of volume 2. There can be an aridity about Bach. I >still have trouble with the ARt of the Fugue, but for desert island music I >would take the Well Tempered Clavier without question. That and Bob >Marley's Legend. But the first I wouldn't tire of. For books it would be >v. 28 of M and E's collected works -- which always struck me as a bit >ironic since a desert island is the last thing v. 28 is about! > >All the best!! > >Howard > >Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2000 14:10:27 -0400 > >To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu > >From: lynne engelskirchen <lhengels-AT-igc.org> > >Subject: Rethinking spoiled porridge > >In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20000912081504.00fd9180-AT-pop.qut.edu.au> > >References: <200009111256.IAA28934-AT-sungod.ccs.yorku.ca> > > > >Gary -- > > > >You argue that if god exists then a believer's ontology is true. I think >this approach has shattered the proud frigate of many a realism, and we >need to sail in a very different sea. Ruth knows how I love to type long >citations into the record. Have a look at Peter Halfpenny's entry on >"Causality" in the Blackwell Dictionary of 20th Century Social Thought. >After a very sympathetic summary of the critical realist approach toward >non-empirical generative mechanisms, he writes: > > > >"The difficulty with this realist view is that having violated Humean >empiricism by granting existence to imputed mechanisms and invisible powers >beyond the epistemic control of experience, what restrictions are there >upon the mechanisms that can be invoked as causal explanations? If viruses >are to be admitted, why not demons or witches spells?" > > > >It seems to me I also read a similar critique somewhere which asked the >same question about "fairies at the bottom of the garden," but, for the >life of me, I can't find it. This is a major challenge for us. > > > >I find myself stumbling across this problem all the time. Bhaskar says >something exists if it has a causal effect, so e.g. the social relation of >marriage exists. But all kinds of fictions and fantasies have causal >effects in individual lives and in society, and Marx's point was that it is >not the fiction that generates the effect. You have to reach deeper, stand >things on their head, etc., e.g. instead of seeing human persons as the >incarnation of God, see images of God as forms of consciousness of social >life. > > > >Now I don't think that robs anyone of the sacred. In the Introduction to >the Grundrisse in the section on Method, I've mentioned before, Marx says >there are different ways of appropriating the world, religious, aesthetic >and scientific, and that makes sense to me. But from the point of view of >social theory designed to understand to intervene to change, I think we'd >be pretty well advised to navigate in the sea of the scientific. > > > >Have you heard the story of Jesus's first miracle? He was playing as a >child making clay birds on the sabbath, and when scolded for it, he shooed >them into flight. Now would a realist want to study the generative >mechanism by which he did that? Whether that's a serious ontological >question all depends on whether the mechanism exists, I guess. > > > >Speaking of spoiling porridge, has anyone read Marsden's book on The >Nature of Capital. This is a critical realist treatment of Marx and >Foucault. At the level of the general discussion of method there are >worthwhile and interesting insights. But when it actually comes to a >critical realist "unpacking" of capital . . . ! Spoiled porridge. That is >why it is not possible to admit just anything as a putative generative >mechanism. Notice the overwhelming tendency of academic social theorists >to imitate the hermeneutic rather than the scientific tradition in their >work. I mean we don't establish results on which others can build. > > > >As for burning breakfast, Gary, you need a paradigm shift. I've had great >success with a steamer. Get the kind with a timer. Never burns and easy >to clean. I'm a new man for it. > >Cooks all manner of things, but especially morning porridge!! > > > >Cheers! > > > >Howard > > > > > > > > > > > >fI've had good success with a steamer! Get the kind with a timer. Shuts >off automatically and easy to clean too. At 08:21 AM 9/12/00 +1000, you >wrote: > >>Ruth, > >> > >>My interest in this question unfortunately distracted me from preparing > >>breakfast. Ah I love the smell of burned porridge in the morning. > >> > >>I meant to say that it was a very good question. It seems to me that the > >>charge or analysis that Bhaskar is now a subjective idealist depends on > >>whether his ontology is true i.e. whether there is a god (within and > >>without). If such a god exists then surely Bhaskar is still an ontologist > >>and not a subjective idealist as Phil would have it. > >> > >>Of course ontological proofs for the existence of god have been largely > >>discredited since the time of Kant. It then becomes as my old teachers > >>used to say a matter of faith, and we move do we not out of the realm of > >>philosophy into that of theology?....sigh! > >> > >>regards > >> > >>Gary > >> > >> > >>At 08:56 11/09/00 -0400, you wrote: > >>>Hi Hans, > >>> > >>>Thanks for your nice offer. I'd be curious to know how Bhaskar, at this > >>>stage in his thinking, would define materialism. How would he distinguish > >>>materialism as a metaphysical stance from idealism, in particular from > >>>absolute idealism? And does he still consider himself to be a > proponent of > >>>a metaphysical materialism? > >>> > >>>Believe it or not I don't at all mean this as a trick question! > >>> > >>>Warmly, > >>>Ruth > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > >> > >> > >> > >> --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > >> --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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