File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0009, message 45


Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 16:30:42 -0400
From: lynne engelskirchen <lhengels-AT-igc.org>
Subject: Re: BHA: Bhaskar and God


Gary --

It is not that religious experience is false, but that its appropriation of
the world does not lend itself to scientific realism.  To say that an
ontology is realist because God exists is like explaining a yellow
logarithm.  A social science of religious experience can of course be
scientifically realist.  

Or perhaps critical realism is no longer a scientific realism.  Does FEW
directly address that question?  Maybe its "more" now.  There's a question
for RB Hans.

Howard



At 02:40 PM 9/18/00 +1000, you wrote:
>Tobin,
>
>As always you give me pause for thought.  I would need to think through 
>what is idealism.  For me the defining characteristics of  idealism were a 
>preference for ideas over matter and a belief that ideas called matter into 
>being. i.e. consciousness determined social being.  (Marx was of course not 
>as classically consistent on this question as some of his avatars 
>claim)  So if Bhaskar's ideas are not creating the world i.e. if god is 
>real then how can he be  idealist?
>
>Your point is though presumably  that his methodology is idealist. Yet here 
>I beg to differ.  It is religious experience i.e. matter that underpins his 
>ontology.  How can that be idealist?  One could of course argue that the 
>religious experience is false or a product of what Iterm doamine flows, but 
>then isn't that truly a vulgar materialist explanation???
>
>much puzzled
>
>Gary
>
>
>At 23:51 17/09/00 -0400, you wrote:
>>Hi Gary--
>>
>>I'm nearly done with FEW (though I may not have time to finish it for a
>>couple of days), so perhaps it's premature for me to respond; but I don't
>>expect there is much in the remaining pages that RB didn't introduced
>>before.  My overall reaction to the book is not a happy one, though (perhaps
>>a bit like you) I'm not totally unsympathetic to his questions.  But I'll
>>save that for after I'm done reading.
>>
>>Anyway I wanted to comment briefly on a couple of your remarks.
>>
>> > For me, though it may sound ridiculous, all the charges against
Bhaskar as
>> > an idealist fail if he happens to be correct in his radically new
>> > ontology.If there is a god then he is not an idealist. As things stand
>>this
>> > can neither be proved or disproved.
>>
>>I don't think this holds: the two are separate matters.  In principle, RB
>>could be right that God exists, yet arrive at that conclusion through an
>>idealist analysis.  I'll mention that his note 31 on page 43, in which he
>>declares that everything is or at least partially or potentially contains
>>consciousness, is decidedly idealist (and more than a little hard to
>>stomach), and he veers that way elsewhere.  Even if he were correct in his
>>panentheistic concept of God, he often defines God (roughly, as an
>>underlying transcendental possibility) in ways which do not comfortably
>>sustain a notion of all-permeating consciousness.  Then again, I can't say
>>he's very consistent in his definitions.
>>
>> > The central problem seems to me what weight do we give to religious
>> > experience - defined broadly as the intuitive or that which cannot be
>> > subsumed under the rational?
>>
>>I agree that this is a key or even *the* question in FEW.  And it is indeed
>>a daring question to raise within the context of DCR.  I think RB thoroughly
>>flubs his answer, but again, I'll save that for later.  But like you, I
>>haven't felt that he goes so far as to say that he is God in a manner in
>>which others are not (though there are a couple of borderline phrases); on
>>the other hand, I've been told by one of his acquaintances that he has a
>>quite enormous ego, and certainly the trajectory of his Lives (the book's
>>Part II) constructs a World Historical Individual of sorts.
>>
>>Best, T.
>>
>>---
>>Tobin Nellhaus
>>nellhaus-AT-mail.com
>>"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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>


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