Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 09:38:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: BHA: this and that


Hi guys,


Apologies in advance for the more or less random comments to follow.


1. Re: the exchange between Karl and Gary, I wanted to pipe in that I'm
pretty sure that I too remain, for the time being at least, pre-DCR.  Let
alone this latest.  In fact, I'm still back at transcendental realism (TR).  

And speaking of which ... I'm wondering if anyone can help with something
that is troubling me.  

I'm pretty sure that I have worked out RB's critique of Kant with respect to
causality.  I think that it is very easy to misrepresent Kant, but that in
the end what Bhaskar says is persuasive.  But in contrast to the case
against Kant's account of CAUSALITY, I'm not really clear what the argument
is against Kant's views on SENSE PERCEPTION.  Bhaskar says that objects must
exist and persist outside of us in order for perception to be possible.  But
Kant says this too, basically.  I mean, a version of it is implicit, if not
explicit, in the whole discussion of the pure forms of intuition.  They are
"applied" - though that's a misleading way to put it really - to something
non-mental.  And it's there in the refutation of idealism, too.  So I don't
think that you can dispense with Kant's account of PERCEPTION by asserting
the existence of a non-mental reality.
  
At issue with respect to sense perception, I think, is not the existence of
non-mental entities, exactly, but rather just how synthetic of an operation
perception in the end is.  On this point, I can't seem to isolate what the
actual ARGUMENT is that refutes *Kant's* account.  Can anyone help with this?  


2.  I wanted to let people know that my paper on the concept of alethic
truth is out in the current issue of the journal *Philosophy of Social
Science*.  And I want to apologize for not having thanked the list in print.
There was a mix up in the publishing schedule -- the piece was not supposed
to have come out until the NEXT issue, and I was supposed to have had a
chance to correct/amend the galleys.  Then they went ahead and published in
in September, minus said changes!  So I'm very sorry about it.  Thanks very
much for all of the discussion, over a long period of time, about this
issue.  Colin especially was my most relentless interlocutor.  (I probably
should have called the article "You Wrong!!" as my partner and I say to
eachother when we disagree about things!)  Also, the missing commas (if you
do read the thing) are not my fault!


3.  About Adorno:  I wanted to mention that I recently purchased a very
newly published collection of lectures that Adorno gave in the spring and
summer of 1963, largely on Kant.  The book is just out in English, and is
called *Problems of Moral Philosophy* (Stanford, 2000).  Unlike Adorno's
written work, these lectures are absolutely, perfectly, entirely lucid.
It's amazing.  [While I'm at it, an excellect secondary source on Adorno is
a book by Simon Jarvis called *Adorno: A Critical Introduction* (Routledge,
1998).   It's hands down the best of its kind.]


Warmly,
Ruth        



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