File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0010, message 50


From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: Re: BHA: DPF C 2.10
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 20:48:18 -0400


Hi Howard--

> Thanks very much for your post.   Your example of the absence of power
> causing the loss
> of a document offered the kind of check on the onesidedness of my own
> instinctively
> chosen examples that dialogue is about.  And in case I hadnt understood
the
> persuasiveness of your argument, a failure of my own computer caused me to
> lose an
> earlier unsaved version of this post after it was about 80% completed.

Well!  Not even *I* suspected the true scope of my power!  (Or as Bullwinkle
says, "Don't know my own strength!")

You wrote:

> Still . . . here are some examples like yours:  The wind causes the
> windmill to turn; lack of
> wind causes it to remain stationary.  Gasoline causes the pistons to lift;
> lack of gas causes
> the motor to stop.  Breathing oxygen replenishes the supply of oxygen to
> the blood; lack
> of oxygen causes death.  Etc.
>
> Doesnt Ockhams razor apply here?  What is significant about these
> examples is that in
> each case the second item of the pair makes no additional contribution to
> scientific
> understanding.  When we know that the explosion of gasoline lifts the
> piston, then we
> know that if there is no gas, nothing will happen.  We identify gasoline
as
> a powerful
> particular and can come to understand what it is about its nature and
> structure that cause
> it to behave in a way that leads to the explosion.  But if we start with
> the absence of
> gasoline we identify no other structure or tendency that has generative
> powers.   Instead
> we give a reason why.

Careful with that razor though.  We learn a lot from what isn't affected by
a force, and from how things act when a particular force isn't being exerted
upon them.  Causation isn't a one-way street: a force can only act upon
entities which have properties making them susceptible to it.  When the
windmill turns, it's partly because its vanes have mass and are shaped in a
way that produces resistance to the wind.  Thoughts, on the other hand, are
not (to the best of our knowledge) affected by gravity (heck, sometimes they
don't even possess gravitas!) because -- here I go again -- they are
nonmaterial.  Basically, whenever we speak of causation we are really
speaking of co-causes.  It takes two to tango, yeah?  I suspect this is
another reason why it's correct to think of absence as itself causal, and as
Mervyn points out, essential to causality per se.

> Meaning, Volosinov argues, is pure relation.

I have to admit, I demur from this: I'd say that meaning is shaped
(sometimes in important ways) by the medium through which one communicates.
So to me, a materialist semiotics casts meaning as an impure relation.  (I
tend to be quite suspicious of assertions or pretentions to purity ... one
reason I'm not fond of FEW.)  (BTW, I think Voloshinov may actually be
somewhat ambivalent on this issue, but let's save that for another day.)

> What is Volosinovs position on signs as causal?  He does say that there is
> no meaning
> apart from the utterance.  That is, there is no meaning apart from
> expressive action and
> since human action is always expressive, that means there is no meaning
> apart from action.

Well, hold on, let's keep in mind that Voloshinov understands the mind
(psyche) as semiotic -- a process of inner speech -- and so his concept of
"utterance" must be construed broadly.  Also he is quite critical of
expressivist theories of language.  Finally, while it may be true that human
action is always expressive (and I have some questions about this), it does
not necessarily follow that human expression is always made action,
depending on what you mean by action.

> So we could say, then, couldnt we, that real intentionality is always the
> unity of intention
> and action in action.  Intentionality characterizes our actions.  It is an
> attribute of them.
> Reasons, then, are a way we explain our actions, but this does not make
> them the powerful
> particulars that generate them.

But then doesn't this approach treat meaning as merely epiphenomenal, sort
of the way that my beard characterizes my speaking?  Can't inaction (e.g.
not shouting in anger) also be characterized by intentionality?  Or are such
intentions not "real"?  What of intentional actions with unintended results
(the inadvertant insult, etc) -- in what sense should we speak of a "unity
of intention and action in action" in that case?  Most seriously of all,
doesn't your claim that reasons explain but don't generate actions imply
that retrodiction, which RB presents as crucial to science (science being
fundamentally explanatory, not predictive), fails to give a real account of
causation?

Thanks, T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce




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