Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 19:34:31 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: BHA: Gary on FEW


Dear Gary

Is FEW objectively idealist? - Absolutely!

Is it compatible with 'materialism'? In some ways, yes, in others, no. -
Let me run through the different meanings of that word.

1. A general outlook. Raymond Williams in Culture and Materialism
defines 'any serious materialism' - 'as rest[ing] on a rejection of
presumptive hypotheses of non-material ... prime causes, and defin[ing]
its own categories in terms of demonstrable physical investigations'
(Williams, 1980:103). If we substitute 'in relation to' for 'in terms
of', I think this fits the pre-FEW Bhaskar - his system of concepts was
elaborated in a philosophy/science dialectic. He clearly now believes
prime causes are non-material or spiritual (which includes
consciousness), and while he retains the philosophy/science dialectic
(with a greater role now attributed to transcendental intuition and
'creativity ex nihilo' in science itself), he in my view also goes far
beyond it via metaphysical speculation. Now while Williams' materialism
and Marx's own was clearly not reductive or mechanical, such that
everything reduces to inert matter, I don't think there's room in their
conception for the notion that the seas of unrealized possibility that
now seem to be rock bottom for science, are conscious and purposive (or
both so and not so!) - though there are aspects of quantum physics that
could make you wonder.

Then there are the four more specific kinds of materialism to which Marx
subscribed and which Bhaskar in Plato Etc found 'heuristically
acceptable' (but at that stage he was still denying 'an afterlife' and
asserting the 'finitude of human existence', 141n):

2. Epistemological materialism - asserts existential intransitivity and
transfactual efficacy of the objects of science. I think FEW is still
materialist in this sense - or, which is the same thing,
(transcendental) realist.

3. Ontological materialism - asserts the unilateral dependence of social
upon biological being, and of biological on physical being, and the
emergence of the former in each case from the latter. I'd say Roy's now
an ontological idealist, who substitutes 'spiritual' for 'physical'.

4. Practical materialism - asserts 'the constitutive role of human
agency in the production, reproduction and transformation of social
forms'. Roy is still a practical materialist.

5. (Geo-)Historical materialism - 'a research programme nucleated by the
core idea of the causal primacy of men's and women's mode of production
and reproduction of their natural (physical) being, or of the labour
process more generally, in the development of human (four-planar)
species being'. I would say that Roy is now a historical idealist,
asserting the primacy of ideas in social life. (For a materialist, ideas
are of course central to the labour process - or more generally
'material conditions' - but it is not exhausted by them. I think Roy is
now giving ideas - esp mistakes! - a far more autonomous and primary
role. Another way of putting this: he has sublated HM, inverting its
emphases and retaining them in that form as 'negative presences' in
TDCR)

I don't think Roy tries to *prove* (deduce) the existence of God (unlike
reincarnation) - just states that the grounds for belief in God are
experiential and practical (in prayer, meditation etc). The reason for
this is probably that it could only be inconclusive, he accepts that
there is epistemological stalemate. I agree with Doug that, given
stalemate, it is rational to trust your experience of God, or your lack
of such experience.

Mervyn


Gary Maclennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au> writes
>
>>
>>But then, in addition to spirit or God as the ultimate transcendent
>>reality in this sense, you have (p.50) *deities* and avatars -
>>manifestations and embodiments of God eg personal lords such as Krishna
>>or Jesus. No monotheism here! Rather absolute spirit underlies and
>>informs all monotheisms and polytheisms - religious pluralism - (forming
>>a basis for possible religious unity, consistent I think with much
>>modern theological thinking). And then you have many other levels of
>>transcendent being - angels, human souls, etc etc. All in a stratified
>>differentiated open expanding totality (stratified monism), informed and
>>sustained by spirit, which is the cosmos...
>>
>>Mervyn
>Mervyn,
>
>This was all wonderfully clear!  Does it not then make the case for Bhaskar 
>as an objective idealist irrefutab


>
>Of course there is the nagging problem of what precisely is idealist about 
>objective idealism.  As far as I am capable of understanding it, objective 
>idealism suggests the primacy of spirit over matter - In the beginning was 
>the Word, and the Word was with God and God was the Word"  (if I recall 
>correctly).  For me the difficulty lies in how we conceptualize god. Some 
>versions have him (sic) as very material surely

>
>An allied problem with FEW is how much can we know by reason.  I am 
>inclined to think that the "proofs"  in FEW for God and reincarnation work 
>no better than such proofs ever have.  I think it is a pointless exercise 
>frankly.
>


>regards
>
>Gary
>
>
>
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-- 
Mervyn Hartwig
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London SE24 ONS
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Tel: 020 7 737 2892
Email: mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk


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